Past Crosley of the Month Winners - Page 31

Fred Syrdal's latest prize. This is
his 52 Mod SS, serial number VC-40398 highest known VC serial
number. Fred saw it in 1993 at the last Doc Fry meet in Florida,
He says he was "smitten". Unfortunately it went through three
more owners till he managed to buy it.

Fred's modified Super Spots was
owned by Mace (Red) Gellinger, co-owner of Service Motors in the
80's. Fred was told that Red found it in Illinois (hearsay?).
The story was that this car was the last off the
assembly line and built for a friend or employee of
Powel Crosley. Modified in the 50's to look more modern.
If anyone knows more history on the car let us know.

John Van Sickle of Virgina has restored two award winning
Crosleys. Above John and his daughter pose with his 51 Sedan, on
the set of the movie Chances Are.

John's latest work is his 52 Super
Sports, here it is in front of Johns house in VA (just joking).
Both cars are AACA National winners.

Decided with Racing Cars the
Spotlight class this year we needed some racing pictures.
Instead of the normal H-Mods and such, how about stock car
racing. Picture quality is not the best so if anyone has better
quality stock car pictures, please send them to me. These were
reportedly taken at Fort Wayne Speedway in Indiana around 1953.

They were posted by fellow with the
alias ClayMart on the Jalopy Journal website 6 years ago. He
said "A friend of a friend
had a couple albums of old stock car racing photos that I was
able to copy. Most, if not all of the shots, are from the old
Fort Wayne Speedway in northern Indiana."

I thought I had Jim Friday's 49
Convertible as a CotM years ago but I got a note from his wife
Lois nominating it and looking back I had missed it. Sorry for
the long over do feature. Jim's Convertible won the Senior AACA
award in 1979, then the AACA Grand National Senior Award and The
Chocolate Town Trophy awarded by AACA in Hershey, PA in
1981. Jim's car is now shown in the Winner's Circle at the
CAC National meets. I believe Jim's Crosley may be the first
Crosley to win a Senior and Grand National award.

I understand that Jim's parents
drove their Crosley from Iowa to Washington when Jim was young
and they took the seats out to sleep in it at night. Jim was
president of CAC from 1988 to 2002 and is currently on the
board. In the earlier days Jim had a school bus modified into a
camper and the 49 went in the back. I looked for a picture, I
know I have, with the 49 being winched out the back like the bus
was giving birth. This is the only picture I found of the Crosley
Express with Jim from 1979.

Here is the Winner of the Spotlight
class at this years Nationals. I unfortunately don't have all
the details, so anyone that has info about the car to add please
send them to me and I will update the captions. Number 2 is
owned by Jeri Polak of Ohio, that is her on the right.

As I understand it she bought
number 2 at the Nationals in 2014 and restored and made it road
legal, notice the headlights and taillights, not normally
standard on a midget racer. She even entered it in the Keystone
road rally, here.

Al Calvin of Ohio owns this 1941
Pre-War woody wagon. It was shown at 2016 Crosley Nationals with
a restored Pre-War
chassis sitting behind it. Looks like a survivor with a
lot of original paint left and some of the wood. A very rare
model and we had this original and a restored
version both at the show.

The woody came in two styles over
the couple of years of production, this one was based off the
pickup body and has a metal lower body, the other style started
with a cab and chassis so the complete back is wood.

Tim Hamblen of Indiana owns this
custom fiberglass Crosley, he calls it Guppy. This was the Guppy
at the 2016 Nationals. Here is the owners description
of what he knows on the car history.

If the Nationals had a most
improved trophy I think Tim would have won with Guppy, here is a
picture from the 2015
Nationals when he first showed it. He also got it running pretty
good at the 2015 show with the help of other members.

Interesting uses for CoBra engines.
I swiped this photo off Tim Foster's post on the West Coast
Crosley Regions blog,
this Tin Block engine table was on display at their 2016 Fall
show in Buellton, California. I really liked the table and
wanted to make it CotM but thought what companion photo can I
use.

Then I remembered Yankee Crosley
raffled one off at the 2010 Nationals and donated a second one
for our Silent Auction. A little less complete but nice support
legs. Just to show another use of old CoBra engines here is a picture
of the lamp that was presented to me when I retired as President
all those many years ago, it has been sitting next to my chair
ever since.

Bob Brown of California sent me these before and after pictures
of his FarmOroad restoration. Bob says the story he got
was that it was disassembled 25 years ago and has passed through
3 different people till he got it in pieces.

Bob spent 18 months from when he
bought it to complete the rebuild. Looks like a few body parts
got lost in all the moves and Bob had to be creative to make a
finished FOR. The diamond plate looks good and the front winch
makes it ready for some serious offroading.

Our newest Youth Project Mechanic,
Jackson Ross of Indiana and his 1950 Hotshot donated to the Club
by Robert Rogers of NY for the latest project.

Above Jackson is overseeing the
first starting of the Hotshot since he got it home. Jackson is
14 and has been coming to the Crosley Nationals with his
Grandfather since he was 4. His Grandfather is Tim Hamben and he
will be Jackson's mentor during the restoration. Both are active
in the KYANA Region of CAC. Jackson and Tim made the trip East
to Erie PA, right after Christmas, where they met up with CAC VP
Jeff Ackerman who has stored the Hotshot since it was donated
earlier in 2016. Here
is Jeff handing off the car to Jackson. We look forward to
progress reports in the Quarterly.

I realized after last months CotM that Lizzy Fry, the first
Youth Project Mechanic, and her finished project wasn't honored
on the home page. Above Lizzy in the driver seat of her 1947
sedan.You can see Lizzy giving an early status report at the
2014 National membership meeting
when she was CotM. Lizzy had the support of many club
members and vendors with parts. Members of the Ohio region
helped with training and assistance on different skills needed
to finish her project.

Lizzy with her Grandfather as
mentor, both from Ohio, finished her 3 year project not to long
after the above picture was taken at the 2015 Crosley Nationals.
Other commitments did not allow her to attend the 2016 meet
where her grandfather accepted the title for her (after turning
16) from the CAC board of directors. Lizzy Grandfather, Ron Sipe
said “I was pretty proud of her because we’ve got guys in the
club who’ve been working on the same car for 12 years,”
(some of us even longer).